MADISON (WKOW) – With the approval of a redevelopment plan that includes several adjoining properties near the intersection of East Wilson and South Blair streets, an iconic Madison bar and restaurant will soon have its last, last call.
Essen Haus has served the isthmus as a German beer hall since 1982. But its owner, Bob Worm, has decided now is the time to call it quits.
The site will be redeveloped into apartments and a hotel by JCAP Development Group. No start date has yet been set for the project, but the Madison Common Council has given its approval to the plan.
“I don't know, I'm pretty heavy there too already,” he said chuckling watching a video of Essen Haus from 2001.
He has seen the neighborhood change quite a bit in the last 42 years.
“When I first came here, over here, there was a chalk line of a body going up the ramp there,” he said with a smile. “I questioned what I was doing, but I still did it.”
The story is a joking reference to how the east side of downtown looked in the early 1980s. Worm describes it as a “red light district” with sex workers and drug dealing.
Worm claims he struggled to get a loan to buy the property because banks had little interest in investing in areas east of the Capitol at the time.
Worm loves to reminisce and laugh, especially at himself.
The neighborhood has developed a lot over the decades. But some things have stayed the same. He still has regulars who sit at the same corner of the bar nearly every day.
And they have kind things to say about Worm.
“He's the salt of the earth, and he's been a friend ever since we started coming in here,” Marv Kontney, who has been coming to the bar since 1983, said.
Worm’s business and philosophy on life are based on one word. Just like Essen Haus's beer, it's German: gemütlichkeit. Worm translates the word as “fun” and “entertainment.”
Patrons like Kontney are trying to savor the time they have left at Essen Haus.
“I kind of wanted to question Bob about that,” Kontney said. “What does he have planned for us?”
The regulars will have options. The adjacent buildings housing Come Back In and Up North Pub will not be demolished.
The end of Essen Haus has Worm reflecting on the last four decades.
“There's nothing like a place where you can get a boot of beer or the excitement of the band and sit together and laugh together,” he said. “And that's what life is about.”
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